12 October, 2012

The
scientific investigation of things is always channeled quite
markedly by our established preconceptions, assumptions and even our
well-established methodologies. How could it be
otherwise? And, of course, such determining elements do not just fall
out of nowhere. Mankind has had a very long history of such methods,
starting as long ago as when they were rather well-equipped apes in
the trees of East Africa millions of years ago.

Yet, by a long series of adaptions and consequent changes in modes of
living and processing sense perceptions, as well as survival and
interaction problems, they have become differentiated from even the
closest of their other ape relatives, to be able to do things quite
unimaginable in their long past ancestral world.

Mankind,
almost miraculously, began to Think, Communicate and Act to an
unprecedented degree. And all of these developments were totally
unpredictable within their immediately pre-origin states, or indeed
any
prior stages of development. Adaptions not only fitted this species
for necessary actions and methods, but, as always, also extended
things into the wholly new
possibilities of which Mankind became increasingly capable. Entirely
new tasks emerged for the first time capable of being both
conceived of, and then attempted.

But, that amazing development route, does not mean that that he
directly climbed a pre-existing ladder towards some totally and
always available level. Indeed, though most gains were both pragmatic
and rarely fully understood, certain conceptual gains “had the
legs” to enable a whole series of quite different developments too
in an ever-increasing range of areas.

But, every single one, because it was pragmatic rather than
conceptual, always had its limits, and could, and indeed did,
ultimately lead him astray. But, this was not a flaw, or even an
error. It simply could not be otherwise. Progress solely by
discovered processes, which attempt to lift you up by your own
bootlaces, will necessarily have this property.

What is remarkable is that along the way they did, most definitely,
lead to considerable gains, but NOT as a continuous and clearly
consequent sequence. On the contrary, each productive set of methods
and their retinue of emerging ideas would always and inevitably, come
up against an unavoidable crisis, wherein the current tools did not
match up to the jobs that presented themselves. And such crises meant
that extended periods without any significant new gains were very
common.

Something very unusual had to happen to make possible the actual
surmounting of any such “terminating” impasse, and as soon as a
single individual had reached and somehow surpassed the barrier,
Mankind’s communication abilities soon propagated the solution
throughout that person’s in-contact groups.

But, if this inevitable “accelerator-brake” trajectory is not
appreciated, then the exponents to the most currently fruitful ideas
and techniques, will, when confronting such an inevitably final
impasse to their accepted mix of ideas and methods, are made
inevitably prisoners of their beloved paradigms and techniques, and
we can quite definitely say that they had encountered yet another
case of the “tail beginning to wag the dog”!

The
once progressive standpoint, if insisted upon as the “Truth”,
becomes reactionary, and will never traverse the self-generated
impasse. Further development will halt
at such a point, and future achievements will be limited forever to
within the same prior area.

You continue to swim, but only in your own pool: the infinite sea
lies forever just around the corner, and unconsidered.

Now,
this may sound very pessimistic, but in fact it can be the very
opposite, for as Hegel insisted, “Once
you are aware of a limit or boundary, you have already passed it!”

The
seeker for ever closer approaches to the Truth – the scientist (for
example), must be constantly aware of the above described trajectory,
and when he or she encounters what appears to be a terminal halt to
proceedings, must recognise it, and critically review their
previously untouchable assumptions, principles and methods.

Let us look at the current crisis in Physics, which has now lasted
for almost a century, and shows, as yet, no signs of any conquest of
it at any time soon.

It
is, of course, the Copenhagen Era in Sub Atomic Physics! And the
ideas and techniques which have terminated progress in this important
area are NOT new, but have finally outlived their usefulness: these
are the principles of Plurality and
Formalism,
and have forced a significant philosophical retreat, that previously
was seemingly not required.

Now, many will guess what Formalism is, but may not recognise
Plurality, though the latter is not only much older than the former,
it is also more profoundly important, and has, for well over 2,000
years, been the unrecognised cornerstone of all conceptual
developments since that time.

To understand how these remarkable principles have been extremely
effective ideas, and have also generated a whole set of successful
investigative techniques and consequently extremely valuable
theories, we have to, as always, go back to the ancient Greeks.

It is they who most successfully learned to abstract from complex and
unfettered Reality certain crucial simplifications, which very
effectively revealed what were previously hidden, glimpsed or
unreliable in Reality-as-is.

The
cornerstone of their method was Geometry, where by the amazing
simplification of points, lines and planes into what were actually
unachievable forms – dots of zero extension, lines of zero
thickness and completely flat and infinite planes, managed to extract
shapes, forms and relations which were truly universal.

Euclidian
Geometry delivered just such an
available World. And working solely within this idealisation, they
could address certain problems, relationships, and Theorems
(geometric derivations), which were certainly NOT obvious when the
natural entities were studied.

The
abstract versions had separatedForm from
its complex, real World Content,
and studied it in “splendid isolation”. They believed that they
had uncovered the Essences
of Reality, but actually they had only revealed the universal
features of Purely Abstract Form.

They
were working in a totally formal subset of Reality, which because of
that major restriction did funnel down into a very much smaller
number of common patterns – Forms.

Indeed,
it is very clear to me that we should never endow this area of study
with the idea that is Reality. In truth it is NOT about Reality as
such, but only
about the Shapes, Patterns and Forms that constitute a majorly
simplified reflection of Reality, which I insist should be clearly
labelled as that World of Pure Form
alone - Ideality.

It was indeed a magnificent achievement!

It
was the beginning of Mathematics in general, for it is the same sort
of thing – abstracted Form dealt
with entirely separately
from Reality, and in its own terms.
Indeed, it is the process of Abstraction applied to Pattern alone!

But, of
course, this constitutes only one aspect of Abstraction, and for
those who require a broadening of their study of its methods and
achievements, there is a vast country in Ideality.

Yet,
at the beginning of my own investigations, I took many months to
arrive at a general diagram entitled The
Processes and Productions of Abstraction
(shown here)

And
this figure shows what a small corner of the whole we are
concentrating on with Formalism
and Mathematics.
[The index identifies that sector which constitutes Ideality,
and that it amounts to only about one sixth of the diagram in the
bottom right corner.]

I feel that I should say at this point that I am not an external and
perennial critic of Mathematics. Throughout my education in Grammar
school and University I was always at the top of the class in
Mathematics, and have since dedicated very large periods to solely
mathematical researches. I am indeed a mathematician.

So,
these criticisms and revelations are well-informed and well-founded -
and, of course, totally incapable of being the basis for most
problems and decisions in Life (though two Indian mathematicians
recently published a novel in which the hero is sure that the truths
and logic of Mathematics are indeed just that).

So,
because they are so closely related, I must, before I go any further,
reveal the content of that other principle – that of Plurality.

This is the basis of all Analysis!

It
assumes that any Whole can be analysed into its constituent Parts,
which subsequently could be brought together to actually
make that Whole. And repeating the
analysis exercise, with each and every Part, would reveal its
components in the same way, and thereafter be repeated to end a
“possible infinite regress” with a final arrival at a set of
fundamental units
related by eternal laws.

Now
that descent we all know as Reductionism,
but hidden within it is the pluralist
assumption that the various Parts are entirely separable.
This is a crucial assumption, and in certain cases a valid one, but
it is only very rarely true.

It means that Wholes are the result of these separable Parts coming
together – nothing else is involved in the essential thing that we
are abstracting. When we invert Reductionism, along with the
assumption of Plurality, we believe that there is a causal set of
links all the way from the fundamental and final basic elements to
everything in our World. They are inevitable consequences of
particular mixes of those bases, complicated in layer upon layer.

Now,
this sounds quite reasonable but if we find those Parts by
experimental techniques in specially constructed and constrained set
ups, we can assume that what we get by these means will be the same
as exist in the Whole in which they exist in totally unconstrained
Reality. They are totally separable and unchanging as contributions,
and hence, when we have by the same sort of methods identified ALL
the component parts, we should be able to produce the Whole from
them. Now, though this can be true in certain stable
situations, it is usually totally wrong. They are NOT separable!
Plurality is wrong!

The
alternative to this assumption of Plurality is Holism,
which insists that such separability is a myth, and though
“something-like” our extracted relation (in an experiment) occurs
in Reality, it is certainly not
exactly the same. Reality is NOT produced by contributing
separable laws.

Laws are produced by particular interacting and mutually affecting
mixes within Reality, and when that changes so does the Law,
sometimes so radically that you could not even relate the new Law to
the old law; they could be entirely different.

Yet Science is built upon Formalism and Plurality.

How was it so successful, for it most certainly was?

It
worked because we didn’t apply the extracted laws in totally
unfettered Reality. On the contrary, we had learned to first
rigorously constrain a section of Reality to a remarkable and
maintained degree to reveal, and then extract relations more easily.
And then
we also found out that our laws would only work when applied in those
exact same
Domains, from which we had extracted them.

We are
the horticulturalists of Reality!

We create the ideal plots, cultivate and maintain them, learn all we
can to improve them to most effectively extract our necessary
“truths”, and then apply them within our perfect plots to grow
what is possible there.

Now,
this has worked well in very many areas for several centuries, but
you cannot cover all of Reality with greenhouses, controlled
environments, irrigation and appropriate fertilisers. At certain
crucial points, we must confront Reality as
it is! And that occurs mightily in Sub
Atomic Physics.

Now, the
effect of all our constraints and consequent extractions upon our
conceptual and practical approaches was not immediately evident, but
turned out to be nevertheless absolutely crucial.
We only very rarely address qualitative
change!

Our
construction of Domains, and the extensive constraints within them,
effectively impose an artificialstability
upon an invented situation: we make absolutely sure that the area of
study does not qualitatively change under our hands into something
significantly different. We kneel on its chest and hold down its arms
and legs to study its properties.

“Stir
thoroughly, then wait for equilibrium, before taking any
measurements” is the usually
applied imperative, which encapsulates this approach more generally.
We know that to get results we must study stability!
We, very sensibly, only look in stable conditions for our
relations. We, effectively, reveal the Science within various
versions of Stability.

Indeed,
each and every law (equation) that we uncover is always a law of
the precise conditions that we set up and maintain in our
experimental area – our Domain,
not only of extraction, but also essentially of application too.
Though we know well enough that qualitative changes do always happen
naturally in all unfettered Reality, we don’t reveal why they
happen, because we very effectively prohibit them in our experiments.

Now,
the usual response to this assertion is the bringing forward of the
many examples of Change of State (Phase
Change) readily admitted to by each and
every scientist. They all with surprise explain how they are very
well aware of the changes from solid to liquid, and liquid to gas,
and are then admonished by reference to rules about Latent Heat. But
any such laws are about energy transfers only! They don’t explain
why these qualitative changes occur: they merely describe
what occurs energetically. Causes are never part of equations: they
are succinct descriptions
only!

And
whenever we are confronted by such changes, we institute two quite
different responses. We turn away from causes and instead do overall
statistics!

Latent Heat is merely a measure of the energy involved, that is
necessary as part of the transition, which will transfer from one
organisational regime to another, and, as it stands, merely as a
quantitative amount, it could never be said to be any sort of
explanation of the change!

So,
in the past there has always been what we can describe as an
accompanying explanatory narrative,
which is additional to any constants and equations, and which derives
from our knowledge of and theories about the structure of solids and
liquids, so that when these True Theories are coupled with the
quantitative stuff we feel we have a solid handle on what is going
on. And, when real explanations are extracted from scientists in an
area such as this, what they say derives very little indeed from the
quantitative descriptions, and almost entirely from the qualitative
theories, that appear in the always-accompanying narrative. Then, we
hear of balances between opposing forces, which settle into stable
arrangements, and which can explain everything from ordinary
expansion on energy input, the breakdown of the current Phase into
something very different on a Change of State.

This is our solution!

We do NOT actually explain anything with our purely quantitative
formulae and the various thresholds, which signal Phase Change. We
give our static forms together with purely verbal explanations, based
upon qualitative models or metaphors. And this is always the case
over the widest range of phenomena too.

But,
we do not know how to address Dynamic,
Qualitative Change in process:
we just get out at the relevant “floors” where stability has been
attained, and there is very good reasons for this. Such transitions
are never simple and formulatable as are relations within stability,
especially when the latter are extracted in artificially stable and
specially constructed Domains. Our sciences and our scientists
do not know how to deal with Significant Qualitative Change.

Now again, many would dispute this, but they are mistaken.

What
we do is state what we know
about some particular changing phenomenon, especially if the various
stages map onto something else that we are very familiar with. We
“explain” by analogy! “Just like that over there!”, is not,
I’m afraid an explanation. It is certainly useful, and allows some
things to be inferred, and others to be seen more generally, but it
is appearance and not essence.
It is something we know from experience to be the case, and not
something we understand.

Our
investigations are either carefully chosen or rigorously constrained
(or both) to allow our usual extraction of relations. We build
Roman Roads through the countryside of Reality; we do not usually
investigate Reality’s own passages of creative change. But,
of course, this means that we ignore vast tracts of the most
important areas and processes that are actually transforming Reality.

Let me illustrate this with the most important example.

We
know nothing about Revolutions! Now, the reader might reject such an
area as freakish, biased and unimportant, but this only demonstrates
that they do not even realise that all qualitative changes of real
significance only
happen in just such Events, not only in Society but also at every
single Level in the development of Reality since its start.

These
Events are termed Emergences.
Indeed, at every single significant turning point in the history of
Reality, all important qualitative changes only occur in relatively
short episodes of truly revolutionary change, in Emergences!
And, in between, there have been many very long periods of Stability,
in which most things stay relatively the same,
varying only in inconsequentials – usually quantitative and
formulateable!

Even the absolutely crucial relationship between Stability and
Emergence is never addressed. We merely take the transformed
situation and study it entirely within its own terms as a “New
Science”!

After
the, actually certain, Origin of Life
from non-living substances and processes, we merely address the new
Level of Living Things and call it Biology!
And it is really studied in isolation.

To report that non-living processes still occur, is of course true,
but to assume that when they seem to be happening within Life they
are exactly the same is rubbish!

The
crucial question of exactly why and how the first Life came
to be is nowhere known or
understood.

NOTE: In Brian Cox’s repeated comments in the
Wonders of the Solar System
TV series on BBC TV,
he seems to infer that the occurrence of Life would be automatic
given only conducive conditions, appearing more like reproduction
than miracle.

It is not part of what we do, is it?

But, the Quantum Crisis did a great deal more to disable Sub Atomic
Physics. It ultimately led to the victory of Bohr and Heisenberg at
Solvay in 1927 and the establishment of a new order in that branch of
Physics, for the essential explanatory theories or accompanying
narratives were declared to be wholly self-kid, and all such
contributions banned.

Instead
the only reliable and hence “truthful” gains of past methods were
deemed to be the extracted and “essential” Equations
alone.
And, without that crucial explanatory framework, the causes of
phenomena became
the extracted, “objective” laws themselves. Science was not only
transformed to be entirely pragmatic (like Technology), but also
switched around to now be also idealist!

Theories, as they used to be, vanished, and were replaced by
equations alone. And, if you had one that worked, it was thereafter
termed to be a “theory”.

Of
course, it was no such thing: an equation is a description
only, and a purely formal one at that. Yet, if you consider it to be
more than that, you are saying that, “Obeys
this equation!”, is the cause of
a phenomenon.

It most certainly is not!

So, how
does this once so appealing, “waggily-tail” get to remarkably wag
the whole dog in very misleading ways?

We
still have to set up more and more exclusive and extreme Domains to
get the reproducibility required for reliable relations to be
extracted as “the underlying essences”, and the contents of these
defined and maintained Domains become more and more special and
unlike any current or past situation. So much is removed or held
constant that all holistic effects are also totally absent. We
usually limit our entities to at most two, and sometimes only one(?).
And gigantic machines costing billions of pounds are constructed to
add what they consider to be the only necessary ingredient possible –
Energy! And the only phenomenon they can conceive of,
conducive to this style of investigating, is the majorly destructive
Collision – the
total dissociation of their accelerated entities and their targets
(now often the very same things) into whatever is the result.

Of course, they can never control what happens after a collision
event, but because the conditions have been so strictly erected and
constrained, they infer the construction of each Whole in terms of
its “broken” Parts. Now, where have I heard that before?

You
are right! It is indeed Plurality,
applied not in the greenhouse-type conditions where it is usually
employed, but in an arranged cataclysm. And guess where all the
evidence for such mammoth dissociations occurs? It is only
in real world Emergences, which always commence with a cataclysm of
enormous dissociation, but then go on to a series of alternating
Phases in entirely opposite directions, involving on the one hand
creative construction
of New Order, and on the other by the Second
Law of Thermodynamics, until an
entirely NEW complete Level is created out of the almost totally
unconstrained detritus of a complete Level dissociation.

Do
you think that our Copenhageners at the Large
Hadron Collider will do it?

So,
as revolutionary socialists, instead of borrowing at
some-significant-cost from the ill-gotten gains of the wealthy, we
must face the task of relieving them of this crucial component of all
economic life in a modern country, so that it is still available,
though no longer as a guaranteed and ample sustainer to a parasitic
well-living class, but as an essential social resource for setting up
and developing producing and serving organisations.

Now,
how do we do that?

Clearly,
they will not give up their easy life without a major struggle. If
they could see no alternative but to throw themselves off skyscrapers
in the 1920s Depression, they will certainly not take the removal of
their sustenance by the Working Class lying down. They will fight it
determinedly, and expect to win!

And,
if they begin to realise that they just might lose, they will hide
their wealth away in hidden or defensible areas like the Romans’
Latifundia or even their own private sub-states, be it a Caribbean
island or a mountain redoubt. [Where do you think the buried treasure
hoards from over a thousand years ago got to be both hidden, but
leaving no survivors knowing of their locations? They had clearly
both lost the battle and indeed perished]

No,
these people will never agree to such a loss. We won’t be able to
simply “vote-it-in! Much less of a threat caused the Spanish ruling
class to back Franco with his imported Moorish armies, who fought to
defeat the elected Republican Government, and their allies.

Clearly,
all committed revolutionary socialists must address the necessity of
Revolution, and finish with the idealised dreams as seen from a
rational high plateau of Stability to be somehow achieved by
consensus means. That isn’t this world!

Who
decided on the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya, and was their
reasons for intervention the truth? Those who determine on a
socialist future will certainly have to fight to win their country,
and then socialise ALL wealth!

But
sadly, most of that wealth is an inflationary myth! Its value within
world-wide Capitalism is not merely dependant upon its cost or
use-value alone, but also on both the control and the buying power of
the wealthy - and, it must be added, upon the ability to borrow:
those who have the resources will always trust others of their class
with prodigious loans (as long as they will benefit too).

And
the hegemony of the dominant capitalist powers inflates what they
have at the expense of those worldwide who deliver what they produce
at prices determined by those powers. And thus this underwrites the
ability of those who now own to make a substantial profit out of
them.

A
paper dollar backed with armed forces possessing worldwide reach is
“worth” vastly more than a mammoth stone ring (as their indicator
of wealth) on the island of Yap (how much labour was needed to
produce such a “sign-of-wealth” would mean nothing in a
capitalist world). Labour may be the original source for the value of
all commodities, but convertibility, and a well-heeled market can
inflate it prodigiously.

And
when such a global parasitic system is no more, real value will
surely begin to reassert itself! The resources and effort that has
gone into any commodity, along with its clear use-value, will
determine its value once again. And those who can, with skill,
knowledge and hard work, will be the only contributors of extra real
value. Though it has always been the case throughout history, it is
only in a classless society that this real relation will regain its
actual status once more.

For,
such a “revolution” in value is an unavoidable consequence of an
actual genuine Socialist Revolution. And it means that not only will
the capitalists try to run away with everything that they can carry,
but even their supposed wealth, when taken over, will rapidly revert
to its “actual-value” – a ten pound note will be worth the
paper it is printed on: such agreed wealth will melt away!

Now,
the consequences for a Socialist State, on taking over the wealth of
the capitalists to re-employ for the public good, will find that much
of what they confiscate is of much less value than it was given
within Capitalism.

“Is
this shark preserved in a tank of formaldehyde really worth
millions?”

Such
prices require a market equipped with sufficient wealthy individuals
to indulge themselves. With no incredibly wealthy people, who will
pay £500,000 for a ring for their spouse? Or Buy an £10,000,000
estate as their new stately home?

So,
rather than fighting to possess paper money and contracts etc., the
new regime will have very different objectives.

Of
course, such a return-to-value will not occur immediately. Whatever
bolt-holes there will be, even temporarily, for the super rich, their
jewels and their gold will buy sustenance and defence for a time.

NOTE: It should be no surprise that the Faberge trinkets of the
Russian Czars and their aristocratic penumbra still turn up at
Antiques Roadshows. They have been sustaining the escaped aristocracy
for generations as they finally declined to nothing.

So,
following a Revolution, all their expensive items must be confiscated
too – to prevent them using such wealth not only to preserve them
(in waiting, so to speak) but also to prevent their funding of
opposition to the new Socialist State. And even their paper money and
other virtually valued wealth must also be taken from them. They, to
survive, will have to do what we have had to do all our lives. They
will have only themselves, their hands and their work to provide all
their needs. Of course, it is true that most will be entirely ill
equipped to do that. The only possible way out of her dead-end life
for Mary Queen of Scots, was to plot the overthrow of (to her) a
foreign monarch – Queen Elizabeth of England: absolutely nothing
else was considered either feasible or even possible. She could not
live like a peasant: for she would perish in no time at all!

Now,
it isn’t generally realised just how wasteful the old capitalist
regimes were, and still are. Without the increasing pressure from
below, they would still just turn their ownership into
ever-increasing ”possessions” in ever-larger stately homes or
mansions.

Though
they vigorously pretend otherwise their “charity” and concerned
“providing of work” for the lower orders are merely fig leaves
covering their real motives. Their main purpose is to sustain
themselves and their progeny indefinitely in the state to which they
have become accustomed.

The
produce of society is constantly transformed into either further
encrustations as displays of wealth in the prized palace of the
infinitely idle, or as the means to own an ever-larger slice of
whatever industry and commerce there is.

Why
the things that these parasites collect are considered to be our
culture beats me! There is infinitely more real quality in 1 year's
work by a great teacher than a lifetime’s display of what wealth
can buy – after all they made NONE of it! And the craftsmen who did
make it would never spend so much time and effort on things for
either themselves or other ordinary mortals. These things were for
the Elite! They had to be “over the top” and colossally
expensive: they were the badges of their in alienable “rights and
privileges”.

Once
such parasites are no more, society will turn its imagination,
industry and genius to Mankind and Reality at large, and not invest
it in a privileged elite. Service will replace Success.
And Profit will be as dirty a word, as was Usury in the
Middle Ages.

Instead
of Technology merely making the rich richer, it will at last do what
it has always been promised to do. It will make life easier and work
will take up a much smaller part of our lives. We will instead have
time to develop ourselves, and pursue ever-widening interests.

Now,
the question must be addressed, “Why would a Socialist State need
Capital? Is that not a contradiction in terms?” The answer,
however, is simple: it is “No!”

The
modern world for Mankind is no longer a hunter/gatherer one, neither
is it merely that of the farmer. It is a manufacturing existence
using ever-developing technology to deliver ever-expanding needs and
wants. And you can’t start a viable manufactory on your kitchen
table, or live freed from all commitments in a commune in Mid Wales.

Modern
Society needs Industry, Commerce, Academic Research, Education and
many other very expensive organisations to not only deliver its
present needs, but to expand and enrich the lives of all its peoples.
Charity has never been enough, and the resources to construct the
necessary organisations cannot be achieved by good will alone.

So,
the concentration of wealth as a resource for such undertakings will
not only continue to be necessary, but will have to grow
considerably.

Now,
clearly the question is, “Who will hold such resources, and monitor
their legitimate use. And who will choose what projects deserve
appropriate funding?”

Indeed,
all “delivering” types of organisation will aim to make
“surpluses”, which will not thereby convert directly into higher
wages for that group of workers alone. Some will also go in local
projects for the public good, while a proportion will be centralised
as “capital” (or more properly “funding”) resources to fund
projects and organisations of all kinds. But no one will get rich,
and no politician will accrue considerable power, which would be
mis-used.

The
question of the source of Financial Resources will still be very
important, and its repositories and controls, which do NOT exist, at
present, will have to be devised and developed.

09 October, 2012

Neither was intended as a coherent and comprehensive establishment of
an arrived at philosophical standpoint, but, on the contrary is
intended to reveal the processes of philosophical investigations
necessary to establish an alternative position to the current consensus.

Now, it is the long held position of this writer that it is in
precisely this area that current-day Marxists, have crucially neglected
the very discipline which gave Karl Marx and his colleagues the
wherewithall to establish the most important developments in Human
Thought for many centuries.

So it is hoped that these will lead those who are stimulated by these
Muses, to themselves once again address the philosophical questions and
develop what Marx established to equip political activists with the
wherewithall to appropriately and effectively intervene. For some of the
productions of such methods by this author SHAPE Journal includes most
of the most recent important efforts, in particular The Theory of Emergences 2010.

About Me

I am a retired lecturer and full-time writer. As the truth of Science has been my major concern throughout my life, I cannot conceive of teaching it in an uncritical, passive way. It's truth or error is THE question, and its improvement must be my main purpose. Teaching for me is Philosophy, and that means taking a stand on all sorts of issues, not sitting on the fence!